


to forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace

by obsessivereader



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Supernatural Elements, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, angel of death steve, happy ending in the afterlife, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 14:44:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14287197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsessivereader/pseuds/obsessivereader
Summary: The only thing he remembers from wipe to wipe is that he must wait next to the bodies. He must wait for the one who comes to collect their souls.





	to forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [talkplaylove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkplaylove/gifts).



> Based on this [writing prompt](http://talkplaylove.tumblr.com/post/161730626959/writing-prompt-s-after-witnessing-a-death-a): After witnessing a death, a young girl falls in love with the Grim Reaper. She becomes a serial killer just to see him more often.
> 
> RJ, it took me ten months, and a shift in otp. Forgive me /o\
> 
> The title is from The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Soldier sits by the cooling body of his target and waits, the blood on his hands turning tacky as the seconds slowly tick by. There’s a disturbance in the air next to him, something unseen swirling into existence just beyond the edge of awareness.   
  
He doesn’t turn to look but continues to watch the blood congeal under the target. He fixes his victim in his mind because that is all he can offer in atonement. Gentle hands remove the goggles and muzzle from his face and place them on the table next to the knife covered in blood.  
  
“Bucky.”   
  
“Why do you call me that.”  
  
“It is your name,” the angel of death says.   
  
“I have no name.”  
  
“You do.”   
  
The angel rests a hand on the Soldier’s arm. He pulls away, not wanting to soil the angel with the blood of his victim.   
  
“You gave me your name when you died,” the angel says.  
  
He lets himself look up finally. Lets himself take in the slight form of the angel—pale gold hair gleaming as though lit from within, a fine-boned face, spotless robes. The jointed curves of feathered white wings arch up above his head. He stands in a pool of blood in his bare feet.   
  
“Did I die,” the Soldier says.   
  
“You did. For a few seconds, but then they brought you back.” He brushes a hand over the Soldier’s hair. “I came for you. Peace should have been yours.”   
  
“Tell me again who I am.” Where his memories should be there is nothing but an empty, echoing place, filled with the cold of the cryochamber.   
  
“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. You were a soldier in the United States Army, captured and experimented on, forced to work for your captors. You are a good man.”  
  
The Soldier doesn’t look at the body on the floor. “I don’t think I am.”  
  
“You are more than what they made you do.” The angel’s blue eyes are fierce as they bore into him. “Remember this, if nothing else.”  
  
A bitter smile tugs at the Soldier’s lips. “I can’t even remember my name.” The only thing he remembers from wipe to wipe is that he must wait next to the bodies. He must wait for the one who comes to collect their souls.  
  
“Then I will remember for you, and I will remind you every time we meet.”  
  
“Take me with you,” he whispers. “Please.”  
  
The angel steps closer, close enough that the Soldier’s bowed head presses against the narrow chest of the angel. Hands come to rest on his head as wings furl around them with a rustling sound, blocking the view of the body on the floor. The Soldier breathes in the comforting scent of sun-warmed linen and curls his hands into fists. He has no right to touch the angel’s robes, or bury bloodied fingers in feathers the soft white of a swan at dawn.  
  
“I cannot,” the angel whispers into the hushed quiet in the shelter of his wings. “It is not within my power to take a life. I can only open the way between worlds.” In a voice edged with steel, the angel says, “If it was, I would have bathed the world in their blood.”  
  
It is a small comfort that gives the Soldier strength to pull away. He knows these stolen moments of peace cannot last. If he tarries too long, there will be punishment on his return. The wings fall slowly away from him, feathers whispering against the leather that covers him.   
  
“When it is your time,” the angel says, “I will come for you. I swear it.”  
  
The Soldier nods. He hopes it will be soon. That’s the best he can hope for. Every other hope has been excised from him. “I’ll be waiting.”

 

*

 

“Come with me, Bucky.” The angel holds out his hand. “You’ve done enough. Their ships are falling, and this one will soon follow.”  
  
The Soldier reaches out to grasp the angel’s outstretched hand, but the helicarrier heaves beneath his feet. His legs give out from under him and he crumples to the floor in a pool of his own blood. He won’t be getting up again.   
  
With a startled cry the angel lands on the ground next to him. The angel’s fingers are gentle as he lays the Soldier’s head in his lap. “What happened to you?” he says, soft and sorrowing as his eyes catalogue the injuries on the Soldier’s body.  
  
“Tried to set things right.” When the members of SHIELD still loyal to its true purpose had fought back, he’d protected them from his former handlers. In return, they’d respected his wish to be left behind. Everyone could see that he had very little time left.  
  
“A good man.” The angel smooths the Soldier’s hair back from his brow. “Your crossing will be easy, nothing at all like the crossings of those who hurt you.”  
  
“Will you be on the other side?”  
  
“Yes. I will be with you all the way.”  
  
“Is it my time now?” All around them, the helicarrier tips and tilts and shudders in its final death throes.  
  
“Almost.” The angel glances up at the steel girder over their heads as it groans and buckles. “But you don’t have to wait till the very end. You have suffered enough.”  
  
The Soldier takes the angel’s outstretched hand and nods. He’s had enough of pain.   
  
At the first touch, he hears a song, unearthly and beautiful as stars in a void. It drowns out the sound of explosions and the scream of tortured metal. Pure white light emanates from the angel, bathing the Soldier in warmth, building until he has to squint against the glow. There is a flicker and gasp of pain.  
  
“Stop,” the Soldier says, when he sees the strain the angel is under. “What are you doing.”  
  
There is a moment of utter stillness, no sound save for a single sustained note of such purity that tears prickle at the Soldier’s eyes. For the first time in his recall, he feels no pain, not even the constant ache that is the metal arm weighing on his bones.  
  
The angel wilts, his face gone pale. The Soldier scrambles up and gets an arm under the angel’s wings to support his back. At the first touch, the angel goes boneless, his head lolling back.   
  
“No, no…” The Soldier sits on his heels and cradles the slight form of the angel in his lap. He hardly weighs anything, as though he’s made of nothing but hollow bones and air. “What have you done?” The angel’s glow is dimmed, his wings dulled to the colour of old bone.  
  
“I could do nothing while you suffered all those years. I wanted to spare you this last pain.” Even with his grace diminished, the angel’s smile is as brilliant and fierce as the noonday sun, his eyes the bright blue of a summer sky.   
  
A sweet, sharp sting pierces his heart. “You didn’t have to.”  
  
“I would gladly pay the price ten times over.” The angel closes his eyes and tucks his cheek into the crook of the Soldier’s neck.  
  
The Soldier tightens his arms around the angel as terror congeals inside him. “Are you—”  
  
“I will be fine, Bucky. I am comfortable where I am.”   
  
The gleam of mischief in the angel’s eyes reassure him more than any words can. The angel seems content to remain in his arms, and the Soldier is content to have him there.   
  
He looks around at the featureless white landscape while the angel rests. The air feels neither too hot nor too cold. All around them is silence.   
  
“Where are we?”  
  
“The holding place. Once you decide where you want to go, I will bring you there.”  
  
“I have nothing, no memories from before.” The only places he knows are from his time as the Soldier.   
  
The angel reaches up to touch his temple. “Not true.”  
  
A spark ignites at the point of contact. It branches out, racing along neural pathways, spreading through his head like wildfire. In its wake, memories bloom in his mind, bringing beauty and colour, but also thorns.  
  
His childhood, the war, his time with Hydra, his name. All the death. And with every death, the angel. Coming to him again and again, comforting him, reminding him who he is: Bucky.  
  
He remembers the care in strong hands too large for a small frame. The warmth of soft feathers surrounding him. He remembers the shock of that first sighting, when he’d woken up on a metal table to blue eyes staring into his own. He remembers the horror he’d seen there, and the sadness. And he remembers the cold fury in the gaze directed at Zola.  
  
“Steve,” he whispers.  
  
Steve smiles. “You remember.”  
  
“I do.”  
  
“Where will you go now?” Steve asks.  
  
Bucky considers the question for a long time. But in the end, there’s only one possible answer.   
  
“With you.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr :) [yetanotherobsessivereader](http://yetanotherobsessivereader.tumblr.com/)


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